Sharp Knife of a Short Life
by MD14
Summary: O/S - Sam and Andy have their first honest conversation about Jerry's death.


**A/N: Been reminded of Jerry a lot in the past couple of days, and wound writing this when I was meant to be writing something else. So. Here we are.**

* * *

She hears Traci's car pull up in front of the house and she looks out the bedroom window to see Sam closing its door, and walking up the path to the porch.

Rubbing her eyes of the sleep that's clouding her, watches him pause half way to the door and wipe a hand over his own face, no doubt tired himself.

She toys with the draw string of her pyjama pants and wonders where exactly they'd been. Watching him continue on his way to the door she exhales heavily, seeing it because of how close she is to the frosted window. The cold front was coming early this year, and the house was definitely chillier than she'd ever experienced it. But she highly doubt that temperature was the reason for that.

When she went to bed last night, he was still at work. She woke up when he got home, but by the time he came to bed she'd dozed off again. And of course when she rolled over this morning he was gone again.

She's missed him all week, and yet they've been under the same roof for hours at a time.

All of this, his return to work and the anniversary of Jerry's, it's piling up and he's been... unreachable.

And it was something she'd been fearing for weeks. But she backed away. She let him burrow down into case work. She let him grunt in response to questions about his day. She let him sit by himself on the couch and drink a tumbler of scotch before he came to bed.

But she was afraid that this space was too much. And that he was falling too far. Today of all days, she can't watch him push and hide.

She turns away from the window, feet carrying her out of the room, without her really even having to think about it. She was at the top of the stairs just as he came through the door, and he nearly rolled his eyes when he saw her, walking down to him slowly, before unzipping his coat and throwing it on the back of the couch.

Biting her lip, she walks right to the couch to pick it up and pulls a hanger from the front closet, making a point of looking as unaffected as possible. He watched her do it, eyes pensive and face steady, and then proceeded to the kitchen, huffing out a frustrated breath on the way. Her survival instincts told her to go back upstairs, to bed for a little while longer, but a bigger part of her told her to follow him.

"Can I help you?" He asks, a few minutes later after she's watched him make a couple pieces of toast.

"No." She says, going to get herself a glass of water, feeling about as big of a pain in the ass as he was trying to make her out to be.

"Need a ride home?" He asks, really testing her.

The thing is he never really asked her to be there with him. It had been an unspoken thing, they've stayed together basically every night anyways, but the last few nights she's gotten in the truck and this is where he's driven. And now all of a sudden he decided she was an imposition.

"I'm good." She smiles, trying to seem sincere. Trying to tell herself this is what he wants. A fight is exactly what he wants. "Want some coffee?"

He looks as though he's about to give her a glare or a snarky smile, but before he can make up his mind between the two, she's left the room. Expecting him to follow her, he supposes. And he does.

"I... uh, yeah." He says at last, surprising Andy a little.

He seats himself, plate in hand, at the bench, and rests his head in hands when she turns to the cupboard, grabbing the canister of coffee grounds from the cupboard above the machine.

As she scooped them into the coffee filter, she felt tension build between them. His loud chewing and the crunch of his crispy toast was the only thing to keep them company until she started the machine and it whirred to life.

Once she's got it going, she leans her back against the granite counters edge, and watches Sam. Taking a long and slow sip from her glass.

He brings a piece of toast to his mouth and takes a large bite and sweeps away the stray crumbs from the counter before he notices her gaze.

"What?" He barks, renewing his former mood.

She lets him take another bite of toast before answering.

"Nothing."

He scoffs in response, looking as though he'd love to say more, but takes another bite to stop himself.

Andy moves to the dish rack, noticing that it needs emptying, and as soon as she moves a pan, a few more dishes fall causing a clatter, and Sam to drop his toast and brace both hands on the counter in front of him.

"What the hell are you doing?" He asks loudly, fed up with whatever game she's playing.

"I'm just tidying up." She says calmly, putting it in its cupboard and then straightening up, thinking that this is it. "Do you want me to go upstairs?"

"I want you to go home!" He yells, standing now. "I want you to stop hovering and waiting for me to crack!"

Andy recoils a little, feeling tears spring realizing that she should have just left when he'd offered. But she'd imagined this going another way. Things had been good... before. He was talking to her, like, really talking to her. If he had a bad day, he just said it, and then she'd go to her place, and he to his, and the next day things were better. When she was upset, he encouraged her to tell him instead of just being solely a physical source of comfort. It wasn't a one hundred percent turn around. But they were better.

And now it was square one.

"I hate it when you look at me like I'm worth pitying." He sighs.

He sits back down, obviously regretting the shouting, and he stares at his hands.

She's a little shocked still that he didn't just stay gruff and grumpy, giving her the cold shoulder, that he'd actually blown up a little... but maybe he had just cracked. And then his words sink in.

Andy opens her mouth to argue with that. Explain that it's not pity, it's concern, and love. But she thinks maybe he actually knows that. He's self deprecating. She often has trouble convincing him of how easy he is to love.

"It's not pity Sam." She whispers, looking down at her own feet, trying to let the giant tear that's smoothed over the surface of her eye fall without him seeing it.

And she's successful. He's still looking down when she's wiped her eyes, and gained a little composure.

"I love you. And it kills me to see you go through this. You don't want words, you don't need them. I know nothing I can say will help, so I'm just trying to be _here_, _with_ you."

She pulls at the sleeves of her sweatshirt and moves from her spot and at first she doesn't realize where she's headed. And then she realizes that it's time for her to go.

She stops in the middle of the kitchen long enough to face him and explain.

"I'll go home, because obviously it's just as bad. But I just wanted you to know that, I _am_ here and I'm not going anywhere. Not again."

She hopes that he's hearing her, and right before she passes where he's sitting he looks up at her and reaches for her hand, causing her to stop. He's not done.

"I was at the cemetery." He says, a little rushed and like he'd wanted to tell her but hadn't been sure how to. His thumb smoothes over her knuckles, and she takes one step closer, realizing she won't be going anywhere. "Nash asked me last night if I'd go with her. So that's where I was."

Andy sits down in the stool next to him, so he doesn't have to look at her, but so that she can rest, in case there's more coming.

"I wish it was easy for me to talk about this. You have no idea." He shakes his head, and she almost thinks he's going to say that he wishes she knew what was going on in _his_ mind.

"I do. I do know. It's not easy. And I can be okay with that. You don't have to tell me everything all the time. But you can't push me away if that's all it is." She places one hand on the back of his neck, running her fingers lightly against the baby hairs there, hoping it's giving him a little reassurance.

Sam leans back and into her hand and lets out a deep breath, contemplating her point of view.

"No, that's not- Andy..."

He's ready to say something, she knows, so she just waits, pulling her hand away and staring at the open kitchen in front of them.

"I still feel guilty." He admits, surprising her quite a bit. "I think about him every day. I go over that day all the time. Wondering if I had done one thing differently-"

"Sam. You're not the only one. If I'd gone home with her, if I hadn't decided to work the case. Hell if I hadn't insisted that we go to the hotel..." She trails off, finding the memories of the day overwhelming when she thinks of every little thing that might have made a difference. "But... it doesn't matter. Because if it wasn't Jerry, it would have been someone else."

She knows that it's probably been said a thousand times. Not by her... because it's really the first honest conversation that they've had about that day.

"It might have been you." He says, after a long silence.

She places her hand on his knee, waiting for him to cover it. When he does, she laces her fingers through his, and squeezes just slightly.

"Yeah. Might have been you." She agrees.


End file.
